Treasure of the Clan
by Xazz
Summary: Sometimes what is seen is not what it is. And sometimes what isn't seen is where a drop of truth is found. Yet we think we know everything, even if we don't know all the questions in the first place.


I was playing Sly 3- and I got an overwhelming desire to write fanfiction... not so uncommon for me. -yawn- I'm tired

Disclaimer: Sly and everything related belongs to Sucker Punch Inc. I just bend the rules a bit

A/N: Don't kill me on spelling. My Word Prosessor is a dumb ass and doesn't have a spell check. So please, if you have crits for my spelling, save it cause I hate wasteing your time and its just a waste of my own time.

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I raised my head soberly when someone called my name. "Curry," they said again and I looked over at them with my half asleep face.

"Ah," was all I said and stilfed a thick yawn that would've sent the entire class yawning with me.

"Comon Curry, we're moving to the next exibit," said my friend. A spunky Terrior with floopy ears that perked at the slightest noise and a real nose for trouble.

"You guys go ahead," I said and waved them off.

"Curii're," snapped my teacher, I stared at the man blankly. "Come along, we aren't leaving you here," he said tartly and clacked his parrot beak together.

"We're in college Professor," I stated rather lamely, "you don't have to ho-" I broke off and yawned hugly. About half the class did as I did and a few even stretched their arms, I heard a few spines crack. "hold our hands," I finished and scratched my head before covering my mouth when another yawn hit me.

Professor Breek's red and blue plumage fluffed up so much he looked more like a ball of feather and down then a parrot. He opened and closed his beak several times, each time it clacked shut, but couldn't think of anything to say to me. As was typical, Breek never could understand why students talked back. Said in his day they never did, what day? Six years ago when he graduated from the same college with a Doctrite in Fine Art History.

Finally he managed to get a grip on himself but all that came out was a rather obnoxiouse squawk. The rest of the students laughed, though a few didn't; I didn't. "Can't we just enjoy the show Professor? You don't need to cart us around like we're still in elementary school," chided Kaddy, a slim Gorrila with light brown fur and darker cuffs around her bulky wrists.

I smiled slightly when Breek turned around to look at the class and saw some of the biggest, waterist, eyes I had ever seen, and I have a five year old sister; so I've seen some really good 'puppy dog eyes'. Still these guys, they really took the cake.

Breek puffed out into a featherball again and clacked his beak for no real reason I could see before getting a thoughtful look in his black beady eyes. "Fine," he said, "enjoy the show. But," he said as everyone was about to split up, "we are all to meet up front at the door at five O'clock," he told us and wagged his blue finger at us. We all nodded. "Okay then," and his feathers lay flat once more as we drifted about the art museum.

Chances, my Terrior friend, latched onto me for a little while. But then when she saw I wasn't leaving the current exibt anytime soon she quickly lost interest and drifted away to find someone more exciting.

For my part I was writing a paper about on of these pieces. I had found the prompt on the web and it had really grabbed my interest. The painting was called "Treasure of the Clan", and it showed a dark room with moon light spilling in through a window that you couldn't see. Up against the wall was a dark was a child's crib, one of those old fashion ones with high walls you couldn't see through and a canopy top that came half way over the bed. Around on the ground, glittering in the moonlight, were gems. Large ones, small ones, ones embedded into toys, others pressed into clay or made into teething rings. They were simply spilled out on the floor all helter-skelter as if they had just been played with and had been left there by a child. And on the walls and on the one dark dresser you could you see was the sparkle of gold, silver, and jewels of all shapes, colors, cuts, and size.

It was a highly contriversal piece. Because it was highly disputed just what the title meant. Did it mean the child, or did it mean the gem? No one but the artist knew. And they were dead, died fifty years ago in a coffee shop in Amsterdam after smoking a bit to much pot. He got whacked out of his mind and shot himself with a fellow patron's gun. But since they said he was mad in the first place it didn't seem to surprise some people to much.

And the prompt was about all this contriversy. Just what did the title mean? It was a nation wide contest put up by an organization that slips my mind. They're giving a prize of a few hundred bucks to the winner of the contest. So here I am, in the middle of New York City, looking at a painting way older then I am, half falling asleep, and trying to come up with something for this contest. Cause, really, I don't expect to win, I just wanna have my stuff out there.

I rubbed the back of my neck and my head dropped. With a tired sigh I ran the same hand through my auburn locks and over my small horns that curled up from my curls and into the airr ending in small, sharp, points. It was agrivating at times, really. Nothing seemed to come to me. It was as if I had left my creativity, as well as my good night sleeps, back home up in Rome New York in my lame hole in the wall dorm room. And here I am on a school funded trip to one of the greatest, most influencial, cities in the world and I'm acting like a sick homeless person who managed to sneak into the place with a large group and just came in here cause its warmer then outside and all I wanna do it sleep!

I shook my head and rubbed my large brown eyes before yawning. I was so tired, I just really- if nothing else- wanted to curl up on this hard bench and sleep. I didn't really give a hoot if it was made of stone, I was just so god awful tired I didn't really care if I had to sleep on a bed of nails at the moment.

But no time for that! My school had forked over the money to send their Fine Art History students down here to NYC so we could come and look at some of the meuseums and see the pretty art, write papers on the said art, maybe publish a book, give thanks to said school because we went there, kiss ass to our Professors, and try and make the school look good later on if we ever did anything with this degree we were paying a couple hard earned Gs for a year.

Well, when I put it that way it sounds really sucky doesn't it? Even to me it sounds like a sad excuse for a life. No matter who you are it's a sad excuse. And half the classes I pay hundreds of dollars for I don't even go to. Or if I do I'm to busy day dreaming about going other places. Places more exotic and foreign then stupid NYC, which me and my family have gone to every year during the summer since I was like… three or something. Still, after what happened to my brother my parents made me go to collge, they're doing the same thing to my little sis, once she gets out of highschool in like ten years I mean.

I stared down at my blank paper the pencil held in my hand and felt like screaming. Screaming and ripping the paper to shreds while laughing at the top of my lungs. Little good that'd do me.

That's when I felt a pressence loom over me. I looked up and blinked a few times to rid the spots that danced in front of my eyes from my lack of sleep. Standing practically next to me, while still giving me space, was a sharp looking raccoon in what could be called "mobster chech". With his sharp suit and hat, waist coat, it looked like he had stepped out of one of those old black and white mobster movies I had been enthralled with when I was a kid.

Only, unlike the charecters in the movies, he had a real aura about him. Not one that was seen mainly, but one was felt in the very air. One that made it almost hard to breath as his prescense filled up the room but without anyone even noticing him. He was the face in the crowd everyone knew but the one that if put in a lineup you wouldn't recognize him even if you had known him your whole life and just pass right over him.

He was looking intently at "Treasure of the Clan", behind a pair of dark glasses. I could just image his eyes flitting about the room in a calm collected way not looking at anything in particular but seeing everything in fine detail and not missing a single piece of what he saw. He looked at everything and nothing at the same time, the same way he filled up a room with no one seeing him. I probably wouldn't have even noticed him had he not been standing dead in front of me.

He moved to the side and blocked my view of the painting. His move went unnoticed to the people around us, as if he had appeared there. There was something about this raccoon. The way he held himself, as if ready to flee at any moment. Or his way of being everywhere and no where, and being seen but never seen. But something about him was off, he seemed to- relaxed. No one is that relaxed in our world these days, everyone is constantly in motion. Fueled by highly caffinated drinks, alchohol, bad pop/rap music, and polititions who couldn't seem to get crime rates to drop back down into some kind of normalicy that had been the way of the world for about twenty years. Still, he seemed perfectly at ease. Maybe that was the reason he seemed supisouse. But it could've been any number of things.

"Excuse me," I piped up. He looked back at me and I saw myself refected in those dark glasses. Me, Curii're-Curry- Jasjin, the Gazelle. With dark auburn hair, light aubrun fur with those damn markings weall had that dripping down our faces like we were crying white tears. "Can you move, please, I can't see the painting," I explained.

He smiled at me, "of course", he apologized and stepped out of my way. I nodded at him then looked at the painting. I stared at it for but a second then looked back at that man. He was gone. Maybe he had been a figment of my overactive imagination. Had never even been there, but my sleep deprived mind had projected this image of a cool raccoon man standing and looking at the same painting as me. As if it was letting itself have some indulgence by giving me a swauve gangster to oggle at while I tried to write about the prompt.

I couldn't understand it. It was a mystery to me. I looked back at the work of art and I could practically hear and feel the gears of my brain moving as I started to see something else in the painting. There was a shadow against the wall, so dark I couldn't really see it. It was like a figment of my imagination. But it looked like a shape, a person maybe. Like they were standing on the window sill looking in, a long tail like thing coming off one end that was great and bushy. While something else crossed on front of it. What it was I couldn't tell.

I stood up quickly and went to the painting. But the would-be shadow gave up no more secrets and all that I saw more of was the odd appendage that was twisted is it was a broken arm.

I yelped as someone grabbed my hand. Chances was dragging me away, much to my displeasure. Her mouth going a million miles a second as she talked about something. From what I could get from her rapid talking I understood there was an exibit I just **_had_** to see. So I let her drag me along. I looked back once more at "Treasure of the Clan" before she pulled me beyond its sight.

It was the last time I saw the painting up close. The last time anyone saw the painting up close. Because that night it was stolen.

For some reason whenever I think about it my mind always drifts to that male raccoon dressed up like that old time mobster. Looking at the painting with a sort of cool there but not-there sort of feel to him. For some reason my mind always comes to the conclusion that he did it, that he stole it. Though I know it's probably not true. Because he wasn't real. Just a figment of my overactive imagination.

* * *

-thinks- should I contine this? Really I don't know. What do you think? Is it good enough to be continued or should I just leave it as is? -shrug-

-Salutes- Z out!


End file.
